Sunday, July 16, 2006

Israel At War: Day 4 Roundup

I have been out for most of the weekend so I have been unable to provide breaking news coverage for Saturday. Here is a synopsis of what has transpired over the past 24 hours.

In northern Israel: over 100 were fired on Saturday resulting in 90 more injuries. Thankfully only one was serious and no fatalities were reported. 36 rockets were launched at Tzevat and 24 at Nahariya. The big news on this front was that the resort city of Tiberias was hit with two barrages of rockets resulting in some structural damage. About 54 people were injured by Katyusha rockets in Tiberias throughout Saturday, including seven who were wounded by shrapnel. The rest suffered from shock. An inquiry revealed that five rockets hit the city, one of them landing near the Pagoda restaurant on the shores of Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee. This is a new and unsettling reality. Tiberias is a fairly large city that is relatively far away from the border. This shows that the enemy is capable of targeting cities within 30 kilometers of the border.

Haifa: Three Patriot batteries, aimed at intercepting ballistic missiles, were deployed in Haifa. Patriot missiles were stationed across the country for the last time in 2003 during the Iraq War. IDF sources said that the batteries’ deployment is the result of “an evaluation of the situation."
The total number of casualties resulting from 700 rockets launched since the beginning of the war is 500 injured and 4 fatalities. This does not include the 8 military KIA's.

In Lebanon: We reported late on Friday that an Israeli naval ship was struck by an explosive packed UAV which resulted in severe damage to the ship and 4 MIA's. One body was found today, but the other 3 are still missing. Israeli special forces are searching for them. Details are still scarce.
Inside Lebanon, all of the news reports are very ambiguous. They keep reporting on IAF strikes on the airport, fuel depots, and TV stations. One has to wonder how many times they can hit the same targets? You have to understand that there are many details that are not being revealed in regard to their air campaign and that is a good thing. The only new target over Saturday was a militarinstallationon at the Lebanon-Syria border. Also, IDF spokesmen confirmed that they bombed all of Lebanon's radar facilities on the coast. These facilities are believed to have played a vital role iHizbollah's's attack on the naval ship.
Southern Front: The media is not reporting much about Gaza. The reality is that Hamas continues to fire Kassams almost every few hours. After masked gunmen blasted a hole in the border fence on Friday, the IDF has reentered Gaza and has been executing extensive counter terror operations on the ground and in the air.
In other news: The US is looking to evacuate their embassy. European countries are already evacuating their citizens by ferry. Here is a video of the evacuation.
Also, Lebanon offered a "cease fire" to Israel eventhough they are still firing rockets and have no control over Hizbollah. Israel thankfully rejected it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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